Japan’s birth rate is so low that soon more adult diapers will be sold than baby diapers! There’s even an age-related joke today. Speaking of age…What’s age got to do with anything? In the new issue of STRATMOR Group’sInsights report, Sr. Partner Jim Cameron debunks several of myths many lender CEOs believe: that the average LO is 52-55 years old, that the LO’s age makes a difference in his or her productivity, and that younger borrowers (20s & early 30s) would prefer dealing with an LO closer to their own age. Cameron takes a closer look at these perceptions—and reality. Don’t miss this great year-end story: STRATMOR Insights report.

Jobs & promotions

National MI is excited to welcome Jason Schumacher to its sales team as an Account Representative in Virginia and D.C. Jason comes to National MI with experience in the mortgage insurance industry, and will bring his strong relationship-building skills to the Mid-Atlantic team. He will partner with Account Managers Dudley Delbridge and Ernie Grue, and will cover the Virginia and Washington D.C. markets.

“If you’re reading this, you are most likely in the top group of mortgage originators in the nation, and know how to see beyond the noise and hype and get to the deal. So do we. Assurance Financial is quietly growing into a nationwide leader in lending. Yes, our compensation structure is excellent, and yes, our back-office support is second to none – 16 years of working, changing, and perfecting it. And yes, we have a full-service marketing team at your disposal with a budget and commitment to helping you do what you do best. And yes, we have an unwavering mission to close loans on time, every time! We have immediate openings for proven, successful producing Branch Managers and MLOs in Wilmington, Charlotte, Austin, and many other branch locations throughout the country, as well as an Eastern Regional Production Manager for our expanding East Coast operations. For immediate consideration and more information, contact Paul Peters, CMB, Assurance Financial, Recruiting Manager (225-239-7948).”

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO) is looking for a Regional Sales Executive to be part of a dynamic and collaborative ARMCO sales team. “This person needs to be a highly motivated self-starter with a passion for sales to support our mission of bringing our products to the mortgage industry. This is an “inside” sales role based out of your U.S. home office. ARMCO has been in business nearly 20 years, and delivers web-based audit technology solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation’s top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. ARMCO was selected as one of the Top Mortgage Employers Award in 2017.”

Movement Mortgage recently broke ground on a second building at its headquarters in Fort Mill, South Carolina, an expansion that will double the size of its National Sales Support Center. The building, an $18 million investment, will be 90,000-square-feet and contain a gym, cafe and health clinic. This latest expansion aligns with Movement’s goal to scale its operations, serve more borrowers and add more than 700 new employees to its headquarters workforce over the next five years.

Caliber Home Loans, Inc., with a 20% growth rate between the 2nd and 3rd quarter, continues to expand its distributed retail presence. In 2017, Caliber hired 896 loan officers to join its national sales force. Looking ahead, Caliber is excited to carry the positive momentum into 2018 and beyond. “Caliber is committed to establishing a local presence in markets across the nation,” said Caliber CEO Sanjiv Das. “Our loan officers are strong forces in their communities, and their excellent work has helped Caliber grow tremendously over the past few years. In 2017, we were excited to welcome more than 800 loan officers to Caliber, and I can’t wait to grow our team further.” If you’re a motivated loan officer, looking to join a premiere purchase lender, visit JoinCaliberNow.com or reach out to Jeremy DeRosa.

Products

Obtain your copy of XINNIX’s new ebook, Elevate Your Business: Insights from Top Producers! In this resource, today’s top producers share how they have elevated themselves to the height of the industry. These individuals represent markets from across the country, decades of experience, and millions of dollars in annual production. What they have in common is a genuine desire to help their customers secure a home. This ebook delivers some of their very best advice with you. Click here to download your copy of Elevate Your Business: Insights from Top Producers today!

Want to make your homebuyers happier and save yourself a lot of time and money in the process? Sign up for Approved, the leading digital mortgage platform. Offering a streamlined and mobile-friendly way for loan officers to collect applications and borrower documents 24/7 without having to spend millions of dollars on implementation costs or hours getting familiar with the product. The Approved white-labeled solution works out of the box to help lenders and brokers bring their mortgage operations online. It features automatic document collection, a dynamic loan application, and a communications hub, keeping everyone informed throughout the approval process. The dynamic 1003 is fully customizable, and exports to a Fannie Mae 3.2 (FNM) file. Approved plays nicely with major banking institutions and loan origination systems so you can maintain existing workflows. Contact Approved for a quick demo or to start your free trial today.

Remember that “The Bureau” wrapped up its beta testing of the HMDA Platform. “The beta period will officially close on December 31, 2017 as we transition to the filing period for HMDA data collected in 2017 that will begin on January 1, 2018…The objective of the beta platform release was to provide financial institutions with an opportunity to become familiar with the HMDA Platform and, in particular, determine whether their sample HMDA Loan/Application Registers comply with the reporting requirements outlined in the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA data collected in 2017. The beta period also allowed the Bureau to gain valuable information regarding the performance of the system and provided an opportunity to make any necessary enhancements.

“In order to complete a submission during the filing period, users will need to create a new account at https://ffiec.cfpb.gov on or after January 1st, 2018. We encourage financial institutions to continue providing feedback on their experience using the HMDA Platform and to direct any questions regarding the HMDA Platform to HMDAHelp@cfpb.gov.”

Conventional conforming changes

Peter Miller writes, “I posted a unified collection of mortgage loan limit charts which show the changes and explain how they fit into real estate marketplace: 2018 Mortgage Loan Limits — With Charts.

A $3 billion in a capital buffer? Yup. The U.S. Treasury reached an agreement to give Fannie & Freddie “a safety buffer” in case they lose money, especially due to the new tax deal. This is a significant step in their evolution!

Freddie Mac’s Guide Bulletin 2017-28 includes the following updates: mortgages subject to a disaster-related forbearance plan during the applicable payment history period under the selling representation and warranty framework may qualify for relief from Freddie Mac’s enforcement of certain selling representations and warranties. Expanded requirements for qualifying borrowers with income that will start after the note date. Land Trust Mortgages are now eligible for sale under the Guide, eliminating the need for a negotiated term of business.

Fannie Mae issued Lender Letter LL-2017-10 to confirm the general and high-cost area loan limits announced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The new limits are effective for whole loans delivered to Fannie Mae and loans in MBS pools with issue dates on or after Jan. 1, 2018. Detailed information and updated resources, including the Loan Limit Look-Up Table, are available on the Loan Limits page. For best practices on committing or pooling loans that fall between the old and new loan limits, call the Capital Markets Sales Desk at 800-752-0257.

BRAWL

Last Saturday the commentary had a piece on BRAWL, which also served as a primer on what impacts servicing values. The note prompted Anthony Casa, President of New Jersey’s Garden State Home Loans, to pen, “BRAWL is an important initiative to all originators, as it is standing up for what’s right and insuring a successful long-term business. I started BRAWL because I used a well-known retail lender as my wholesale partner almost exclusively years ago, but when I went to call my past clients, I realized that they were already refinanced and stolen away from me by that company’s retail team. I quickly learned that its business model and intentions are exactly that, to buy brokers loans and feed them to their retail channels. I found out that many other lenders were doing the same thing (see BRAWL’s bad list here), and that is how they ran their business. I talked to other brokers, and nobody knew or truly understood this was going on.

“I respect the views shared by the contributors to your piece on BRAWL. It has been interesting to see the people from various lenders share this article as the ‘informed’ prospective on BRAWL. Your article was informative, but it did not address the reasons why several thousand mortgage brokers are passionately supporting BRAWL. This initiative is not about the economics of mortgage banking, BRAWL is about bringing awareness to mortgage brokers on the practices of certain retail focused lenders in the wholesale space. To quote Maya Angelou, ‘There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.’

“The facts are the consumer direct retail practices that Whole-Tail Lenders are doing is entirely within their power. The truth is these practices are wrong and we are demanding that these lenders provide full disclosure of these practices to mortgage brokers. Mortgage Brokers will decide from their whether they are going to send you their next loan or another loan at all.

“This movement is all about protecting the relationship between mortgage brokers and our customers. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with mortgage brokers that developed a customer relationship and placed that customers loan with a lender to expect that lender would not attempt to repurpose that customer for their own financial benefit and to expect that lender should do everything in their power to keep that customer connected with the broker that brought that customer to them originally? In the financial services industry, a financial advisor can set up life insurance products, college savings plans, and investment accounts for their clients through third-party financial institutions without having to worry about those financial institutions having their retail financial advisors solicit those customers. We expect the same and we are now demanding it.

“The whole-tail lenders being called to task by BRAWL are talking about everything but the real issues at the center of our movement. Mortgage brokers are not interested in hearing these multi-billion-dollar lenders cry about the financial ramifications of changing their businesses practices to protect the mortgage brokers relationship with their customers. Save your breath, be transparent, own your practices, and respond to the issues that we care about.

Anthony finished up with, “To learn more about BRAWL we are directing interested parties to our official website, or to the BRAWL Facebook Group, a great forum for mortgage brokers to discuss all topics impacts their businesses.”

Capital markets

Yes, the yield curve has steepened and the 10-year note finished the day yielding 2.48% as volumes began to wind down ahead of the long holiday weekend. Thursday’s final GPD estimate for Q3 was revised downward to +3.2% versus an expected +3.3%. This was primarily due to personal consumption expenditures increasing less than in the previous estimate. Initial jobless claims increased by 20,000 to 245,000 and the previous week’s number was not revised. Both the Philadelphia Fed Index and the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index increased and point to continued economic growth in 2018.

The calendar is busy again today. We’ve seen November Personal Income and Spending/consumption (+.3%, +.6%), inflation tame, the volatile Durable Goods Orders (+1.3%), and the Philadelphia Fed Non-Manufacturing survey (18.1). At 10AM ET are New Home Sales and the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment. The bond markets will close early at 2PM ET, 11AM PT. The day starts with rates little changed: the 10-year yielding 2.49% and agency MBS prices worse 1 tick (1/32) versus last night – hardly noticeable.

Thanks to Bob M. out in California for this video reminder that we seem to be older than we feel.

(Market data provided in partnership with MBS Live. For free job postings and to view candidate resumes visit LenderNews. Currently there are over 300 mortgage professionals looking for operations, secondary and management roles. For up-to-date mortgage news visit Mortgage News Daily. For archived commentaries, or to subscribe, go to www.robchrisman.com. Copyright 2017 Chrisman LLC. All rights reserved. Occasional paid job listings do appear. This report or any portion hereof may not be reprinted, sold or redistributed without the written consent of Rob Chrisman.)